The Charge

Opening Statement

Facts of the Case

Detective Brett Hopper (Taye Diggs, Private Practice, How Stella
Got Her Groove Back) is about to have a very bad day, over and over again.
He wakes up on a fine Los Angeles morning next to his girlfriend Rita (Moon
Bloodgood, Terminator: Salvation) then heads out to hunt bad guys. Only
he quickly finds out that he's the one being hunted by both the police who
suspect him of murdering an Assistant DA, and by at least two other groups of
dangerous villains.

At the end of each day, Hopper wakes to start it all again, but he still has
the memories and the wounds from the previous version, which allow him to make
new choices each time around. The question is, which set of choices will lead
him to the real murderer while still keeping his friends and family out of the
line of fire.

Tangled up in the mess in addition to Hopper and Rita, are Hopper's sister
Jennifer (Meta Golding), his partner Andrea (Victoria Pratt), detectives Shelten
(Adam Baldwin, Chuck) and Spivak (Mitch Pileggi, The X-Files), and
a cast of other great character actors including Jim Beaver
(Supernatural), Jonathan Banks, and Ian Anthony Dale.

There are 13 episodes in the set. Only six episodes aired on ABC, the rest
were shown online at ABC.com.

Disc One • "Pilot"
• "What if They Run?" • "What if He
Lets Her Go?" • "What if He Can Change the
Day?" • "What if They're Stuck?"
• "What if They Find Him?" • "What if
He's Not Alone?"

The Evidence

When I first slipped Day Break into the DVD player, I was curious as
to how they could sustain the replay of single day over and over again without
it becoming boring. I quickly discovered that boring was not going to be a
problem. The series gets off to an action packed start that has Hopper in the
right place at the right time (which is pretty much the underlying concept of
the show) in order to save a random woman from being plowed into by a runaway
bus. From there on in, it's pretty much down hill as Hopper goes from hero to
scapegoat when he's framed and arrested for the murder of the assistant DA.

The power of the pilot is in the idea of how quickly a person's life can
fall apart through no fault of their own. I doubt many people have woken up to a
murder accusation but a car accident or natural disaster can have the same
effect. Diggs does a great job portraying a man who is used to being in control
but is now being swept away by the tide, but all of that changes when he wakes
up to relive the day again and realizes that he can make changes that effect the
outcome—but not always in a positive way. That leaves him scrambling to
build the perfect day, a day where all the good deeds are done, like saving the
woman from the bus, and the bad things, like the death of his loved ones, don't
happen.

While Diggs handles most of the heavy lifting in the series, the supporting
actors all turn in fine performances, which isn't as simple as you might think.
All of the characters begin at point A, but in each version of the day, they
move off in different directions and their characters change based on those
decisions. Someone who betrays Hopper in version three, might not go through
with it in version four. And though Hopper remembers what he's learned with each
new day, those around him don't. Keeping track of who knows what and in which
version had to have been a writing nightmare but the actors make it work.

Helming Day Break is X-Files and Reign of Fire director Rob Bowman, which is
maybe why I felt like the two shows were close cousins. Even in the commentary
track, Bowman accidentally refers to Diggs' character as Mulder, leading him to
confess that he had just started principal photography on the The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

There is at least one commentary track for every episode in the season with
three or more people on each track. Bowman is prominent, as is Taye Diggs. You
also have writers, producers and even the editor who is an even more crucial
part of the team on a show like this. There's a lot of information here and it's
very casual and chatty.

Additional bonus features include interviews with the cast and crew and
behind the scenes footage. Both of these are light on content.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

The pilot episode of Day Break looks like a TV show that's trying to
hard to be a movie. The colors are over saturated, there are too many fancy
camera shots and edits, and it's almost too big. It's as if they didn't trust
the story to pull in the viewers. All of this settles down after the pilot and
you'll find more attention paid to character as the show goes on.

What doesn't improve, though, is the contrast. The show is very dark in
spots and the contrast is so poor that there were times when I couldn't see the
expression on the actors' faces. It was annoying enough to cut into my enjoyment
of the show.

One reason for the poor video quality could be the way this set was
packaged. When it was originally released by BCI last year, the 13 episodes were
spread over four discs. Here you only have two discs and that includes more than
15 hours of commentary and several featurettes. I don't know how or why they did
this, but it can't be good.

This DVD also has the strangest packaging I've ever seen. Instead of flipper
discs inside the plastic snapcase, there are two paper sleeves, which are held
in place by a series of tabs. The episode titles are printed on the discs and
there is no episode guide or any printed material inside the box.

A minor point, but very annoying, is the music that plays over the
navigation screen. I couldn't scroll through the menu fast enough. Please, make
it stop.

Closing Statement

If you like complex thrillers, then Day Break is the show for you.
You'll need a score card to keep track of who, what and where but there are
sweet little payouts throughout the series as one-by-one the secrets are
revealed. Stick with it until the final episode and you will get
answers—not all the answers—but enough to make it a satisfying
run.

The Verdict

This court finds Day Break: The Complete Series
innocent…guilty…mistrial…hung jury…All rise, court is
now in session.